Friday, January 25, 2013

Believe it or not, this is how they speak English in Singapore

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Please see video link below.

Believe me; I am not being insensitive by using this video to point out how bad Singaporean English is. The video is about a young woman motorcyclist involved in a traffic accident in the island a few days ago as a result of which she suffered serious injuries. We are all sorry for what she has undergone and surely hope for her full recovery very very soon. No one would want anything but that.

The video reports that she is a trainee teacher and would soon start teaching young children in Singapore. She believes I am sure, and her fellow Singaporeans believe it too, that the language she is speaking is supposedly English. Although it may be intelligible to others in the island who speaks that way, what I would like to know is whether anyone else in any other part of the world would even in their wildest imagination think that the language being used is English.

And being a soon to be teacher, can you imagine the harm that will be done to her students, or shall I say her victims, who would leave her class thinking that they too are speaking English.

The English language proficiency in that island is atrocious. It has not always been so. It can be best described as a cross between Hokkien Chinese, a sing song tonal language and English, resulting in the English being totally unintelligible.

The problem is anyone who had any brains have all left the island and are living in the West, in Australia, the Americas and elsewhere. The ones left behind, such as this sorrowful woman, sorrowful in more ways than one in this case, are the product of those left behind, who are either incapable or reluctant to leave Lee Kuan Yew's one party police state. Not having any interaction with anyone from elsewhere, they end up speaking this way like a frog in a well which has never seen the rest of the world; thinking erroneously out of no fault of their own that what they are uttering is in fact English.

And can you imagine, Singapore tries to attract large numbers of foreign students from the neighboring Asian countries to study English in Singapore. If this is how they will speak English after their stint in the island, I would demand that the authorities be criminally charged for cheating and fraud since whatever language they are being taught, it is certainly not English.

4 comments:

Julie
said...

The English we speak here in Singapore is both embarrassing and sounds thoroughly ugly.

I often hear parents speak poor English to their children, using the wrong grammar and sentence structures (usually a direct translation from their mother tongue), and they don't seem to find anything wrong with that. With teachers speaking like this, I wonder if they can shake off the mistakes.

Mr Nair, I can totally empathise with your sense of disgust towards Singlish spoken in Singapore. The real problem is that many Singaporeans have become inured to it to the point of accepting it (ironically) as part of their national identity. Take the best(or worst) examples of such atrocious 'English' in terms of the speech patterns of those in power, who probably cannot make it past grammar school in the UK or Canada, and you will know what I mean. I was educated in the USA and Canada, and although I have a relatively strong hybrid accent, I refuse absolutely to associate myself with the Singaporeans and their way of speaking ever since I left. The worst part of my experience growing up in Singapore on the linguistic front was simply being laughed at and ostracized for sounding proto-North American or what they see to be 'American' (they love to say 'angmoh' which is a rather disgusting word by the way). That totally killed my interest in wanting to associate with any Singaporean ever since I left.

It's not that we can't -- it's more that we are lazy. Read our formal essays and you'll see that we actually have a decent command of the language. In the name of efficiency (as we Singaporeans are well known for), why say "I have to go to the toilet (7 words)" if you can shorten it to "I go toilet (3 words)", right?

"It's not that we can't -- it's more that we are lazy. Read our formal essays and you'll see that we actually have a decent command of the language. In the name of efficiency (as we Singaporeans are well known for), why say "I have to go to the toilet (7 words)" if you can shorten it to "I go toilet (3 words)", right?"

What you say is ridiculous! Who in his right mind would speak English and say, "I no come" or "I no go" unless he is simply poor in English or has no self resect whatsoever.

If what you say is true, only a Singaporean would be content to go around and say "I go toilet" and be proud of that!

Second it is not just the truncation of words. It is the most disgusting Chinese Hokkien sing song accent which makes any male Singaporean speaking it look more effeminate than what he already is.

The tone of voice is simply groveling or begging. Just listen to this pathetic woman in the video.

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About Me

Determined to find the Truth.
Born Singapore, educated Winstedt School 2 (next to Monks Hill in Newton, Singapore) Raffles Institution, National Service, some travel in Europe, then law studies England, return to Singapore, practiced for 10 years, active Workers Party member, stood elections 1988 and 1991 in Singapore, was harassed and persecuted by Lee Kuan Yew for my political beliefs, left for USA, obtained asylum and admitted California State Bar, practice law ever since in Fremont California near San Francisco. Relinquished Singapore citizenship 2005 because I was not prepared to permit Lee Kuan Yew to unjustly retain my CPF funds if I remained Singapore Citizen. On principle, the only correct thing for me to do was to give it up, for my CPF funds. I am an American Citizen as of 2004.